William Read online

  Katie cried out in frustration.

  “I’m going to die a virgin. In this world wherever the hell I really am.”

  William took her to the floor, settling her between his legs. He leaned against the tree with her back pressed against his chest.

  “Don’t ever talk like that again.” Taking her hands in his, he circled her waist with his arms. Katie loved the feel of him around her. He made her feel beautiful.

  They sat in silence, watching the changing view, peaceful in each other’s arms. Katie chuckled as he started to sing, his smooth, rich voice near her ear. She squirmed against him as a pool of heat gathered between her thighs, his notes pulsing through her, heightening her arousal. Her breasts grew heavy, her nipples sensitive to the fabric of her dress. Her tummy tightened against his hands. Moving her hands from under his, she placed them on the tops of his thighs, relishing the strength of him.

  She held her breath as his thumb danced little circles across her belly. She waited, wondering what he would do.

  He kept his hand on her stomach, not moving, and when it seemed he wasn’t going anywhere she calmed against his touch.

  “Relax, Katie, it’s only me,” he said gently in her ear.

  “I can’t. You drive me crazy,” she gasped as he moved his palms delicately up her body to rest under her heaving bosom.

  “The untutored witch and the insane vampire. We make a right pair.”

  Katie burst out laughing, all her nerves leaking away from her amidst the humour.

  His hands lay on top of her breasts. Katie stopped and looked out at the scenery before her, seeing nothing but feeling everything. His comfort surrounded her; his hardness pressed against her back.

  Katie groaned as he circled her nipples with his fingers. “That feels so good,” she murmured. Her nipples budded, swelling as the flow of blood spread through her body.

  The flush heated her skin, awakening her desire further.

  “You’re so lovely and full. You fill my hands perfectly,” he complimented her.

  “I want more, William.”

  He was showing her his lust and she wanted to absorb and taste every new sensation, as much as she could.

  “You won’t die on me and I’m going to give you something to look forward to.” Every delicious word filled her with renewed excitement. “Do you trust me?” he asked before doing anything else.

  “Yes, I trust you,” she said without hesitation.

  “Close your eyes.”

  Katie closed her eyes and listened.

  * * * *

  William gazed at her for a few seconds, just basking in her beauty and the love he had within him for his witch.

  “William?” She sounded nervous and unsure.

  He shushed her. Everything he had planned was meant for her pleasure.

  He brushed her thighs and smiled against her hair as she opened a little wider to accept him.

  “You have gorgeous legs, smooth and full.” William saw her as the healthy woman she’d been after she’d fed on his blood.

  “Is that your way of saying I’m fat?” she chuckled.

  He tapped her. “Don’t say such things. More flesh for me to nibble on.”

  She moaned. “We really are a strange pair.”

  “At least we’ve found each other.”

  He lifted her dress, pulling the fabric up her thighs, exposing her to his eyes. He lifted her with a hand around her waist—his vampire strength had to come in useful for something—and peeled the garment over her head and dropped it in the grass.

  She lay naked and vulnerable to his probing gaze.

  “Your eyes had better be closed,” he warned.

  He knew she had them open. His little virgin was new to all of this. He intended to tease her and bring her to him, to make her his.

  “Should we be doing this?” she asked.

  He placed his hands over her naked breasts. Her back arched and he smelt the pool of cream leaking out of her pussy.

  “This is our world, Katie. I love you. I want to give you something to look forward to,” he answered.

  In truth, he’d fallen for her, the first night they’d officially met, when she’d blown up a werewolf. Her kidnapping, fear for her life, had finally made him acknowledge his feelings for her.

  “I love you, too.” She closed her eyes again. “I wish we were doing this in the real world.”

  “I do, too, sweet cheeks.”

  He showed her the pleasure he could offer her. Touching and teasing her; giving, but not taking anything. This pleasure was for her and no one else.

  “It feels so good…” She cried out as he touched her again, touched everything but her pussy. He was saving that precious jewel for last.

  When she was thrashing against him, seeking something she didn’t have a clue existed, he gave in and swept his finger through her burning heat.

  She screamed, her body opening for more of his touch.

  “Oh…my…God,” she cried out as he pressed her clit, enjoying the swollen nub. She was so close—with a few more strokes she was climaxing in his arms, holding on to William as the waves of ecstasy overcame her.

  Just this once he was going to break his promise. No matter how many times he loved her body in this world, it wouldn’t take any physical hold in the next. William needed to have her fully, at least once. He’d heard the sexual connection could awaken the senses and help to locate one’s mate. Time was running out and Katie didn’t have long. Even now, in his arms as she climaxed, her soul and energy were weakening.

  He laid her down on the grass, hating himself for not waiting. Her eyes were closed and he used the time to release his cock. When he was around her it didn’t take long for him to get hard. He pressed his cock against her centre, not pushing inside. Simply feeling the wetness over her pussy.

  “What are you doing?” she said with a gasp.

  “Loving you,” he growled, before plunging his thick length inside her cunt. William pushed past the small barrier and knew she’d be whole again for him to take in the real world. Tiny sparks erupted between them and he knew this was binding them together. His soul awakened and her essence eased into him. William could sense her.

  He kissed her and pulled all the way out before driving back inside her wet heat. The sensation was numbed in his dream world but would be like fire when he got her for real. This was a taste of what was to come—and his last hope for finding her. He rammed inside her body, the pleasure intense and unexpected. For years he’d gone without the proper love of a woman, forever dealing with whores. Katie was his and in his body he felt her thoughts and feelings. He smiled. Katie loved and hated him. They’d make one interesting couple.

  “More, please. It feels so good,” she panted. William gave her everything he had to offer, never letting up on the pressure, each thrust harder than the last. William gripped her hips and fucked her hard and fast. The need to come was strong and he couldn’t hold back. He flung his head back and pressed his pelvis against her. His cock jerked and his cum shot deep inside her.

  Afterwards, he held her, soothed her and loved her.

  They were together. He’d pleasured her.

  It wasn’t enough.

  The only way to calm his bruised soul, to save his life, was Katie. She completed him.

  He needed to find her, and finally being connected to her, William knew where she was.

  Chapter Eight

  “Are you sure you’re alright?” Adam asked Poppy as she lay, bandaged, pale but alive, on his bed.

  “Perfectly fine,” she croaked in reply.

  He sat down on the bed beside her, the movement causing her to jerk, tensing as she winced. “Shit, I’m sorry.” Poppy smiled. “I’m healing already, no problem at all. You’ll be surprised to hear that what a dead person can do is far worse than the damage that werewolf did.”

  “So you handle this crap on a regular basis?” he asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

  �
��I don’t know if you would call my stuff crap, but I’m a necromancer. It’s what I do.”

  “So how does that work?”

  “How does what work?”

  “Being a necromancer? Do dead people just rise?”

  “No, I have… Do you really want to know?”

  “I wouldn’t be asking if I wasn’t curious.”

  Poppy stared at him for a few minutes. “Okay. There’s me, the one you see, and then there’s another me. I’m…like…split between this world and the spirit world. I call on the bodies of the people I need to speak with and my spirit self brings their spirit to merge with their body, and then the raising begins.” Poppy winced as she moved to a sitting position. Adam was the first person to seem genuinely interested in what she did.

  “So it’s not as simple as it sounds.”

  Poppy laughed. “Do these scars look as simple as it sounds?”

  “They attack you?”

  “Some dead people don’t like being disturbed.”

  Adam nodded. “I can understand that. I mean, I wouldn’t want to be disturbed.”

  Poppy shook her head, smiling. The pain in her abdomen was fading as her body began to heal itself. The healing was taking longer than usual because her other half was still licking her wounds from the last raising they’d done. Well, not exactly a raising…

  “The other problem is that I can’t always control whom I raise,” she admitted to him.

  He frowned at her. This was the reason she’d followed him that night. The reason why she had been at that awful bar.

  “The last person I raised was a witch…” She licked her lips, nervous as she recalled how bad it had been.

  She had been walking home from the library. She liked the library. It was the one place she could go and think without interruption. It had been late and she’d walked past the cemetery. As always, she’d been able to sense the bodies there. Their unrest. A magnetic pull that she hadn’t been able to stop had forced her all the way into the deepest part of the graveyard, occupied by the bodies of those who had died a hundred of years ago or more.

  She had raised one nasty witch. Pulling up a body that had been dead for a few years was hard, but one that had been underground for several hundred years was worse.

  A message passed from beyond the grave.

  “She gave me a message to send to William Valentine,” she said.

  “What is it?” he asked, his voice growing louder.

  At that moment, her spirit self merged with her, delivering the message that had caused them so much pain.

  “Katie White is in danger. An old force threatens the coven of new witches. Katie is the key to the revival of witches, the vessel of the family magic.”

  Poppy could see his confusion.

  “Wait, what the hell are you saying? Katie is the first witch we’ve seen in years. The rest were wiped out by James and his pack.”

  “James is not responsible for this destruction,” continued the spirit within her. Werewolves can kill us but only through direct hits that drain our powers. Our family was killed by a witch,” the spirit inside Poppy said.

  “Wait, what? Who?

  “Emma!”

  Poppy felt her spirit self leave. Her job was done, her message complete. Shaking and cold, she pulled the blanket tightly around her shoulders.

  Adam stared at her as if she had grown three heads.

  “Don’t look at me like that. This witch is the reason I’m failing to heal properly. I fought the message and the raising. She wouldn’t let me. Said something about it being family, that Katie was family. A several-times-great granddaughter.”

  Adam left the bed and stormed round the room. Poppy wondered what had caused the swift change in him. She’d delivered her message and now the weight in her chest had eased and the healing process was speeding up a little.

  “Do you know what this means?” he asked her.

  “Well, no. I don’t know you and I’m only delivering a message.” Her tone was sarcastic. She had known the guy for less than a week and already he’d made her feel hot, made her feel regretful about her scars, got her chewed up by a werewolf and now had forced her into this bizarre war between vampires and werewolves. She couldn’t leave now.

  What pissed her off more, though, was that even taking all that into consideration, she didn’t want to be anywhere else.

  How was that for fucked up?

  “Emma killed her own family. It must mean that. Holy shit—Emma has to be alive.”

  Poppy watched him freak out. He looked really cute, until he walked out and left her sitting here. All alone, Poppy wondered what the hell she’d done.

  * * * *

  Katie lay on her bed, shaking. She had used too much magic. Her energy was draining with every passing minute. She was dying. Her body still hummed from the wondrous dream. Being in William’s arms had made her—for a short time—feel complete and loved.

  Who would have thought she would find her soul mate in a crazy vampire? But he wasn’t just anyone’s crazy vampire—he was hers.

  The end was coming. She could sense the other woman who was here. The woman who wanted her dead. Her power circled her like an endless serpent, wanting her blood, magic and life essence.

  The other immortals in the prison were howling, crying out in pain. Something was happening. Something was changing.

  “Katie,” a still voice whispered through her mind.

  Katie glanced around, looking for the source.

  “I’m here, Baby. I’m always here.”

  Katie knew who it was. The only person in life—besides William and Sophie—ever to make her feel loved and cherished.

  “Mum?”

  Chapter Nine

  William was close. He knew James. He’d spent most of his life searching for him, studying the evil pack leader, looking for a weakness. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of this before.

  James had a history of being predictable and lazy. He’d found Katie using her powers in the Beyer West Forest, the very forest where he’d killed Emma. He’d planted the turned humans, big and bloody. Now, as always with James, he would come full circle—and there, at the edge of the bridge, was what he was looking for.

  No human eye could see the dark mansion with the iron gates surrounding masses of fields. Their father had believed this place was long forgotten. William hadn’t thought about it, too busy dealing with his grief at losing Emma.

  When James had disappeared along with most of the pack, William should have known that this was where he would have camped out. And he needed a witch in order to deliver protection for the wolves, a witch who could cloak the fortress in a sensing spell.

  No immortal would even be able to tell there were werewolves in residence, though the spell had been designed to work against humans, at the time they’d been hunting them, trying to scour out all the evil lurking in the village.

  He approached the gate and placed his hands on the bars. Closing his eyes, he allowed his soul to merge with Katie’s.

  William tensed, his fists straining around the bars.

  She was here. Locked away. Dying.

  William let out a mighty roar, his ferocious anger lighting the way. He was a beast, a vampire searching for his mate, and the Alpha in this house had her.

  The gate bent and snapped open with a single pull. The first werewolf who came at him went down as he tore out its heart. A half-blooded werewolf was no match for the full-blooded, enraged vampire.

  “Katie,” he bellowed, making his presence known to everyone but not caring in the slightest. Six wolves came at him. He charged. The fight was on. He was leaving this house with his woman or he would die trying and he would kill as many fucking wolves as he could.

  * * * *

  “What are you trying to say?” Robert asked his brother.

  “Emma is still alive. She’s been working with James this whole time,” Adam told him for the third time in a row.

  “But we b
uried Emma,” his mother said.

  Adam turned to the rest of the room. Rose was standing next to their mother with Dawn at her feet. Robert stood in the corner with Sophie. Don, looking every bit the angry bitter vampire, stood with Jason near the door.

  “No, we didn’t. We buried a trinket next to her family. She’s not there and she’s not dead. She killed her sisters. She was working with James. She knew the location of all the witches. Emma would have been able to track them down.” Adam began to get impatient.

  “What does Katie have to do with this?” Robert asked him.

  “Emma’s sister was in trouble. She was pregnant. Don’t you remember? She must have given birth before Emma killed her.” Adam looked at all of them, begging them to understand.

  “Fuck,” Robert cursed.

  “William knows,” Jason said.

  “What do you mean?” Adam asked.

  “He left the house a while ago. When I asked, he simply said that he knew where she was. William is going to the fortress but he doesn’t know Emma could still be alive. He’s managed to track Katie somehow.”

  “Emma must have been at the council. She controlled us through magic so we couldn’t stop him from killing our father. I’ll destroy that bitch,” Robert said. All the paperwork on the desk was flung across the room as his anger took hold.

  “Something tells me that after Williams finds her, you’ll be too late. When he finds out she endangered Katie—maybe even killed her—he won’t come back from the rage. William is on a fine line as it is. A vampire without a mate and with all that anger will cause untold chaos. Emma is a dead witch.” Adam said.

  “I need weapons,” Don said. “This ends tonight.”

  Robert kissed Sophie on the head. “Stay safe.”

  They all moved towards the door but Poppy was standing in front of it, the cape gone, her eyes glowing red.

  “You take me with you,” she croaked.